Screen Printing Supplies Stencil Guide.

 

Our step by step Screen Printing Supplies Stencil Guide.

1. Screen Printing Stencil Guide take a sheet of sunlight clear film.

2. To draw or trace, use a sunlight opaque art pen.

The ink is formulated to block UV light.

We can also print our design from a computer generated design program.

The design/image should be at 1200 dpi.

We recommend any Epson photo stylus inkjet printer or OKI  black and white laser toner printer .

Either printer, the settings should be – print BLACK only BEST PHOTO.

We must always use original ink as they have better UV resistant properties.

3. Now we take our Sunlight Exposure Glass Unit and separate all the parts on a table. Clean the glass and lay it flat.

Lay our film flat on the glass, print side down.

Now in subdued light, we unseal our Sunlight Stencil protective bag and remove the stencil sheet.

Place it flat on top of the stencil film, lining up the edges of the film.

We now place the black backing over the Sunlight Stencil sheet, making sure it lines up with the glass.

Now using the pressure clips provided, clip the glass and black backing together.

We are nearly there!

4. Now take the complete sandwiched unit into the sunlight.

We need to keep it covered, so we don’t pre expose! (A simple black bin liner or similar will do for this).

For us to achieve a quality burnt/exposed image onto our stencil, we need to place our sandwiched unit, directly facing the sun.

This can be vertical or horizontal.

Not in any shade.

Blue sunlight stencil, uncover it and expose it to sunlight for 4 minutes .

If in the shade  expose it for 6 minutes. with a uv exposure unit 3 minutes

Red sunlight stencil, uncover it and expose it to sunlight for 30 seconds .

If in the shade  expose it for 2 minutes. with a uv exposure unit 30 seconds

5. When the exposure time is reached, we are now free to dismantle the unit.

This can be done inside or outside (wherever our water supply is).

Now we remove the Sunlight Stencil sheet and soak it in a bowl of water for 2 minutes.

Run the tap water gently over the image to clear the unexposed area.

Use the sponge provided rub gently  to clear any residue left on the image.

Now we hold the stencil up to any light and check that the image is completely clear.

If it is not completely clear, we just need to run some more water, direct from a shower tap through our image.

Hey presto!

6. The Sunlight Stencil should feel smooth as glass.

Peg it up to dry, on  a radiator or washing line. When it has fully dried, it is ready to be mounted for some serious Silk screen printing.

Screen Printing Supplies Stencil Guide Framing your stencil.

What can our sunlight stencil sheet print or paint on to?

Where shall we begin!  Not only flat surfaces but round, curved, around corners, the list is endless.

The secret is in the frame. Or not to frame.

Using Standard Water-based ink or  Plastisol ink.

All these textile products are porous surfaces,  an off-contact is not required.

Which means the Sunlight Stencil sheet can be taped on to the product using simple masking tape.

Our Custom stencil sheet surface is on-contact with the product when we print.

When the surface is porous the ink wraps/soaks into the fibres and you don’t get a build up of ink under the Sunlight Stencil sheet.

Remember – if printing a non flat surface, we can do so without a frame or a flexi frame and to print around angled corners, we don’t use a frame.

Choice 2.Screen Printing Supplies Stencil Guide

I want to silk screen a short print run – 20 of each item, that’s 140 pieces all together.

I want to sell these first, before i even consider buying any sort of machines.

Ok! To save time and energy, our custom stencil can be mounted on a Flexible Frame. No taping involved!

The Sunlight Flexible Frame gives us a huge labour saving advantage on a print run of 140 pieces

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Printing as fast as you can say place print place print place print. We lay the Sunlight Flexible frame flat on a table.  

Using the 2 way double sided stencil tape,  stick one side of the tape around the parameters of the frame and peel the backing of the tape, so the frame is now sticky.

Tape around the parameters

We take our custom stencil sheet PRINT SIDE UP place it over the sticky side of the frame.

Press one side down on to the frame. Keeping it taught, press the opposite side down.

Repeat this with the 2 side ends. Now press firmly down so the Sunlight frame and the Sunlight Stencil is flat.

Sunlight frame meets Sunlight Stencil. Print side up.

We now have a silk screen printing screen that is rigid but also flexible enough to print onto round object – wow!

The thickness of the Flexible Frame combined with the 2 way tape is 2mm, we have a perfect off contact.

Now we can use all opaque inks as well as standard in any range.

For longer print runs on flat substrates the Rigid frame is the right tool

Finally we mask the area where our custom Sunlight Stencil meets

Choice 3.Screen Printing Supplies Stencil Guide

So Easy tension embroidery hoop.

By far the easiest way to tension custom made sunlight stencil. place the inner hoop flat on a table .

Place our stencil image print side down over our inner hoop.

Now place the outer frame over our image stencil and press down, it should have a tight fit .

If it is loose

Remove  the outer hoop and turn the adjustable  screw to make the outer hoop smaller. then push back over sunlight stencil.

Now mask off around the edges so the ink does not leak through  when we start to print.

Furthermore, our customers can buy our stencils in our webstore